Industry leaders discuss rapidly changing IT landscape

Smart Cities, Big Data and the changing role of the CIO among key discussion points at Amsterdam event.

The challenges facing people, businesses and cities as they enter a new, more connected age dominated the discussion at the recent Huawei Western Europe CIO Forum 2014 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.


The Huawei Western Europe CIO Forum brought together over 300 customers, partners and industry professionals from across Western Europe to share experiences and engage in discussion about the changing nature of IT and how to make a better connected, technologically-enabled future a reality. The event programme included speakers from key Huawei partners and customers as well as leading industry figures from the City of Amsterdam, Amsterdam ArenA stadium, the European Commission, SAP, Imperial College London and KPMG.


Ahead of his keynote speech on the topic of Smart Cities, Ger Baron, CTO of the City of Amsterdam said: “We have passed the moment that technology is something nice to have, technology nowadays plays a role in our food production, our water management and health care, the way we organize our private lives and the way we learn. This means that cities need to re-think their role and adapt to what is needed after this third industrial revolution”


Welcoming the audience to the CIO Forum, Kajsa Ollongren, Alderman for Economic Affairs and Deputy Mayor of Amsterdam discussed the transition to becoming a smart city: “Amsterdam’s ambition is to establish itself as a city with the best health care facilities, cleaner air, lower energy usage, reduced motor vehicle traffic and to promote an open flow of information between the government, companies and citizens. Our connectivity is enormously helpful in achieving such goals.”


This follows an agreement signed in October between the City of Amsterdam, Amsterdam ArenA and Huawei to jointly cooperate on the development of the smart city and smart stadium concept.


Dr. Christoph Steiger, Vice President, Head of SAP Business Transformation Services EMEA, highlighted that complexity is one of the biggest concerns of today's businesses: “The explosion of data, driven by the Internet of Things and social media is even deepening this concern. ‎Companies need to master the skill to de-complex decision making, simplify business processes and rationalize technologies to be successful in the future market place. In addition, new, disruptive technologies such as Big Data and Cloud allow companies to develop new business models and ‎generate competitive advantage - if they manage the innovation and the transformation aspect properly.”


Kevin Tao, President, Huawei Western Europe said: “The digital world and physical world are converging, ICT systems are transforming from supporting systems to value-generating systems, bringing dramatic changes to our daily lives and our business. Europe is the leading ICT market and our customers are full of innovative ideas. As a strategic partner, Huawei is committed to continuous innovation based on customers’ demand as well as joint innovation in collaboration with them. We consistently invest in big data, Software Defined Network (SDN) and wireless network technologies with the aim of helping our clients achieve business success and building a better connected world with our partners and customers.”
 

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